Monday, March 25, 2013

To Deanna, with love...

My friend Deanna is infatuated with the city of Loveland, CO. She makes a point to regularly extol its many virtues and laments the fact that she is, sadly, only a weekly visitor and not a resident - I mean she really, really loves Loveland. ;)

And I mean, what's not to love? There are fabulous sculptures on every street corner and in every park... (and I really do love that about Loveland)


There are dozens of cultural events throughout the year...

Larimer County Fair, 2012
 
'Pastels on 5th' 2012 (benefit fundraiser for Alternatives to Violence)
 
 
Loveland Downtown Trick-or-Treating, 2012
 
 

Friends to meet at the park...
 
Homeschool Park Day, 2012
Homeschool Park Day, 2012
(the one where the girls brought their princess dresses)
Beautiful natural areas...

Gathering water samples along the Big Thompson River, 2012

The weather can get a little too hot though...
I hate summer...
 
 
And then the freak show begins...
 
 
First you have the haters...
 

If any of your liberal friends have gone missing, you might want to check with this guy.
 
Then you have the decorators who touch up your car 'for free'...
 
 
 
Then... you have this.
 
 
?
 
Thank goodness Deanna alerted the blogosphere to its existence, because when I caught sight of it the next day while spending time at a park while the older two were in karate class, I was prepared. I had on sunglasses. With UV filters. I can just imagine the sort of damage this might do to your retinas, otherwise.
 
 
 
So let the freak show continue! Loveland, you entertain me (us) in so many ways...
 
(I'm just glad I live outside your city limits.)
 


Workin' on the weekend...

Ta-dah!

 

My wonderful husband put in some serious 'honey do' time this past weekend. He did a tremendous amount of work on the flooring - it was tricky getting all of the measurements right for each of the four extended areas under the desk, refrigerator, garage door and closet. They needed to be spot on, because as the flooring moves across the kitchen, the 'line' needs to extend in one long, straight shot into the dining room.

 

That piece right there, on the edge, will go all the way through the hallway and to the front wall of the dining room. It is hard to show through pictures, but several pieces had to work around cabinetry and walls and under the present moulding, so some boards had to ripped or carefully notched. Dean figures the board waste was close to 25%. Thankfully the hardest part is over and the rest will be fairly easy. (so says the person who is doing 0% of the work. Well, okay...sometimes I help sweep). My husband also gets a gold star because he cleaned up and put most of the tool paraphernalia away for the week. ;)

So, as you can see, our beautiful new fridge arrived safe and sound on Saturday. We had a huge snowstorm blow through, so we weren't sure it would get delivered after all. It was snowing like crazy and there was at least 6 inches on the ground. But Home Depot confirmed our delivery window of 12-4pm, and the delivery guys called at 11:35 am and said they would arrive in a half-hour.

Pure panic ensued because we were dilly-dallying thinking that it either wouldn't happen, or that they would be seriously late. I still needed to unload our old refrigerator. Dean needed to shovel out the driveway and front walk. I needed to move furniture out of the way. Crap! Now I need to vacuum up dust bunnies! Rylan helped me cart down small loads of food to the basement fridge, and when we maxed out on space, we put the rest in the snow. Wintertime's natural refrigeration is awesome!! This is, by far, the best way to achieve that *perfect* glass of cold milk.

 

 

The appliance delivery guys were just awesome. They braved some serious winter weather and tough driving conditions coming up from Denver that morning. They were very nice. They saved the box for the kids (can you say the most fantastic fort e-ver?!) and powered through Colin's and Owen's verbal assault of comments and questions about anything and everything. They helped set it up, move it in place and gave a quick run through on basic operations. They were also kind enough to move the old fridge out to the garage - Habitat for Humanity will pick it up on Wednesday.

 

So here she is! I call her 'Bessy'.

 

"Girl? You're huge!"

I think the fruits and vegetables need their own zip code...

 

This thing has two ice makers. Now, whenever we get ready for camping, I won't feel like such an idiot for forgetting to get a bag of ice. I always forget to get the ice...why is that? And when I DO remember, I pay for it and then forget to retrieve it from the ice machine.

 

There is still so much to do - baseboards, trim, paint...and actually finishing the floor. We are doing the entire ground level, which is just about 1,000 sq.ft. We should be done..oh...about the end of never?